OSINT : Open Source Intelligence
OSINT, or open source intelligence, is the practice of
collecting information from published or otherwise
publicly available sources.
History lesson time
From Spycraft to IT
●
During the 1980s, the military and intelligence services began to shift some
of their information-gathering activities away from covert activities like trying
to read an adversary’s mail or tapping their phones to discover hidden
secrets.
●
Instead, effort was put into looking for useful intelligence that was freely
available or even officially published.
●
The world at the time was changing, and even though social media had not
yet made the scene, there were plenty of sources like newspapers and
publicly available databases that contained interesting and sometimes
useful information.
●
So, the term OSINT was originally coined to refer to this kind of spycraft.
But, how does one gather OSINT??!!
Common OSINT Sources:
The mother of all Common
OSINT Sources:
Organization’s official website:
Tools to OSINT
Shodan
Shodan is the search engine for everything on the internet. While Google and other search engines index only
the web, Shodan indexes pretty much everything else web cams, water treatment facilities, yachts, medical
devices, traffic lights, wind turbines, license plate readers, smart TVs, refrigerators, anything and everything you
could possibly imagine that's plugged into the internet
Email harvester
Userrecon
Whatbreach